President Obama and Mitt Romney to Meet for Final Debate Showdown

While foreign policy became an unexpected pivotal point in last week’s town-hall style presidential debate, Monday’s final showdown is to focus entirely on international affairs.

And with the U.S. government knee-deep in an investigation of its handling of the Benghazi consulate attacks and as reports emerge of planned negotiations with Iranian leaders, the topic could provide a pivot point in the tight race for the White House.

“I think it’s going to be an important debate,” senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod said Sunday, though he sought to lower expectations. “I don’t think any one event is decisive, even though being strong at home and building our economy is the No. 1 issue.”

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney meet for their third of three debates in Boca Raton, Florida, the biggest swing state prize with 29 electoral votes. It marks the closing note of the debate season, one that landed Romney a much-needed boost after his widely applauded performance — and Obama’s derided one — in the first debate. The second matchup was considered more of a draw, with Obama edging Romney in several polls of debate-watchers.

The debate will have some competition for viewership, as the event airs at the same time as two popular sporting events — Monday Night Football, this week featuring the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears, and the pivotal seventh game of baseball’s National League Championship Series, which will determine whether the St. Louis Cardinals or the San Francisco Giants advance to the World Series.

Political observers say incumbents usually have an advantage on foreign policy because of their experience making decisions for the country and access to some of the most privileged intelligence.

A Pew Research Poll that came before the second debate showed Obama ahead of Romney 47% to 43% when voters were asked which candidate they thought would handle foreign policy decisions better. That’s within the margin of error and is a much tighter poll than one taken by Pew in September, which showed Obama leading Romney 53% to 38%.

The Obama campaign has attempted to paint Romney as unprepared to handle issues on the world stage. Calling Romney “reckless,” Axelrod on Sunday hinted at one line of attack the president could take during Monday’s debate.

“We all remember his ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ tour of international destinations over the summer, where he not only roiled countries that are not as friendly to us but also our best ally, Britain.”

During a trip to the United Kingdom, Israel and Poland in July, Romney generated international criticism for his comments in London questioning Britain’s preparations for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

That perceived gaffe was followed by what some said were inappropriate comments about Palestinians, questioning why Palestinian-controlled areas had a lower GDP per capita than Israel.

Romney also has faced criticism over his initial response to the Benghazi consulate attack, in which killed four Americans were killed, and the breaching of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo last month. He put out a statement the night of the unrest, then held a news conference to chastise Obama on foreign policy the next morning. Democrats and some Republicans argued the reaction was made in haste.

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, cited the incident as an example of Romney being unprepared to be a world leader.

“Gov. Romney just seems to be bluster, blunder, cowboy-alone foreign policy,” Richardson said on the program “State of the Union.” “I’m troubled at this time when we had the Benghazi crisis, he’s trying to make political gain.”

But questions have lingered over why the U.S. was unprepared for the attack on the consulate in Benghazi and the mixed signals that the White House sent over its cause.

In last week’s debate in Hempstead, New York, Obama took responsibility for the security of State Department personnel, saying ultimately the buck stops at his desk. “That’s why nobody’s more interested in finding out exactly what happened than I,” he said

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich pointed to Obama’s words and criticized the lack of robust security at the consulate, adding the whole episode represents a larger narrative of the president’s foreign policy track.

“If we can’t figure out what went on in a relatively open city in a country we had helped liberate, why do we think we know what’s going on with Iran’s nuclear program?” the former Republican presidential candidate and speaker of the House said “State of the Union.”

Defending Romney, Gingrich said he had ample foreign policy experience from his time as Massachusetts governor, as well as his role in running the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and living overseas as a missionary.

Weighing in on the expectations for Monday’s debate, political reporter Ryan Lizza told said that while foreign policy is important, it’s not “what’s going to drive the vote.”

“So if you’re Mitt Romney, every second you’re talking about foreign policy is wasted. Which might mean that Romney tries to break out of that, tries to bring home some of the foreign policy issues to domestic economic issues. For instance, when you’re talking about China, that’s in some ways a domestic issue,” he said.

Lizza said Romney has a choice to make. He could try to attack Obama over the administration’s handling of the Benghazi attack, a strategy he took during last week’s debate but ended up making headlines over mixing up a detail in the timeline.

“Or does he just put that aside, put those attacks aside and try to move on to some other issues where he has more of an advantage?” Lizza said.

As for the president’s challenge, Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Obama will need to be “defining the Middle East strategy going forward.”

“He’s had some successes, he’s had some things that are still pretty murky,” Alterman said.

Romney, on the other hand, has a broader challenge of laying out specific policies without upsetting the Republican base.

“The Republican Party hasn’t really figured out what a Republican foreign policy looks like after the Bush administration,” Alterman said. “I think Romney has been uneager to really delve into that, but I think the challenge he will have on issue after issue is you have to get more specific.”

Also developing on the international front, The New York Times reported Saturday cited an anonymous senior administration official saying the U.S. and Iran have agreed to take part in unprecedented, one-on-one talks over the country’s nuclear program. The White House denied the report was true.

Asked about Iran on Sunday, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio used an argument often made by Romney, saying the president failed to back the 2009 protest movement in Iran that the country’s regime stifled with a violent crackdown.

“That set a tone where now Iran thinks they can go harder and faster than they could go. And today, they’re closer than they’ve ever been to a nuclear capability,” Rubio said on.” “That’s very unfortunate.”

But former White House chief of staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, also appearing on “This Week,” said that while he didn’t know whether the reports of talks with Iran were true, the “tables have been turned” by Obama’s approach.

“Three and a half years ago, the world was criticizing us on Iran. Today, the world is criticizing Iran on its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. That’s a direct change,” he said.

RELATED ARTICLES

AFRICANGLOBE - My heartfelt condolences go out to the family, friends, neighbors and all others that loved George Floyd who was recently murdered by law enforcement officers in Minnesota. Every day in America a Black man, woman or child becomes a victim of police brutality and misconduct!

AFRICANGLOBE - Being neither a scientist nor a physician, I can only rely on my common sense as to why Black communities have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. And no, I don’t think it’s because Kunta Kinte was forced to change his name to Toby, or the prevalence of underlying health conditions caused by poor lifestyle choices.

AFRICANGLOBE - I stopped going to rallies and protests because I know how most of today’s protests will turn out. First, the local people will pretty much be kicked to the curb and the modern day carpetbaggers will assume the leadership of the protest event.

AFRICANGLOBE - Don’t think the recent murder of a young Black man in South Georgia is an isolated incident. You have to be careful and cautious in every neighborhood you’re in. Today’s klansmen are embolden by the white nationalists in the White House, they are brave when they have numbers, they are courageous when they have weapons and they have little or no fear of a judge or jury giving them the death penalty for killing Black men, women and children!

AFRICANGLOBE - Sperm counts appear to be plummeting throughout the Western/white world, according to a large study of men around the world. An international team of scientists analyzed data from nearly 43,000 men in dozens of industrialized countries and found that sperm counts dropped by more than half over nearly four decades.

AFRICANGLOBE - For years now, we’ve been telling you that eventually the ever-growing alphabet soup that is the LGBTQ Movement would, at some point, have to add a ‘P’ to their acronym. The letter ‘P’ of course standing for pedophile. Why is this inevitable? Because of their motto, ‘all love is love‘. Logical thinking people say otherwise. Pedophiles are rebranding themselves as “MAPs” or “Minor Attracted Persons” in an effort to gain acceptance and be included into the LGBT community.

We are an organisation of people dedicated to the propagation and the dissemination of news and information relating to, and of importance to African Peoples worldwide. Our main objective is to provide an online portal where people of African decent; African heritage and friends of Africa can liaise and exchange knowledge and information.

We allow third-party companies to serve ads and/or collect certain anonymous information when you visit our web site. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or third party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

Before or at the time of collecting personal information, we will identify the purposes for which information is being collected.

We will collect and use of personal information solely with the objective of fulfilling those purposes specified by us and for other compatible purposes, unless we obtain the consent of the individual concerned or as required by law.

We will only retain personal information as long as necessary for the fulfillment of those purposes.

We will collect personal information by lawful and fair means and, where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of the individual concerned.

Personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which it is to be used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes, should be accurate, complete, and up-to-date.

We will protect personal information by reasonable security safeguards against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.

We will make readily available to customers information about our policies and practices relating to the management of personal information.

AfricanGlobe.net may use cookies to store personal preferences on your computer and you agree to this

Third party websites including advertisers on AfricanGlobe.net also may place a cookie on your computer and by visiting AfricanGlobe.net you agree to this.

Advertisers may place a file called cookie on your personal computer and by visiting AfricanGlobe.net you give permission to that.

All posts made on AfricanGlobe.net express the views and opinions of the author and not the webmaster, admin or any other member of AfricanGlobe.net.

Under no circumstances, including, but not limited to, negligence, shall AfricanGlobe.net, be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages that result from the use of, or the inability to use, AfricanGlobe.net services

By visiting AfricanGlobe.net you specifically acknowledge and agree that AfricanGlobe.net is not liable for any defamatory, offensive or illegal conduct of any user.

We are committed to conducting our business in accordance with these principles in order to ensure that the confidentiality of personal information is protected and maintained.

Content Lockers

This Terms of Use explains the operation principle of the Content Lockers on this website.

On this website, you can encounter the Content Lockers which may ask
you to sign in, subscribe, enter your name or perform other actions to get access to the locked content.

Using Your Email Address

When you enter your email or sign in through social networks, you agree to that your
email address will be added to the subscription list for sending target news and special offers.
You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the link at the end of any of emails received from us.

Social Apps & Permissions

When you sign in through social networks, the Content Locker may ask you to grant
permissions to read or perform some social actions.

The Content Locker retrieves only the following information (according the Privacy Policy of this website):

Person name

Email address

Content Locker never collects other data and never publish anything in social networks from your behalf without your permissions.
After unlocking the content the Content Locker removes all the access tokens received from you and never uses them again.

If there are any questions regarding this Terms of Use you may contact us.